Church cheers as tot sings ‘no homos gonna make it to heaven’

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI – “I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong. I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong. Romans 1, 26 and 27; ain’t no homos
gonna make it to heaven,” the three-year-old toddler pipes.

And he is rewarded with the obvious delight of an
onlooking pastor and an ovation from Greensburg, Indiana’s Apostolic Truth
Tabernacle congregation. Little consolation that the dislikes (7,183 and counting)
outnumber the likes (447 and still ticking up, too) registered by those who have
watched the video.

Seems like pastor Jeff Sangl and his flock didn’t want their North Carolina counterparts to outdo them in the upping-the-homophobia-ante department. They had to get creative if they were going to trump Charles Worley’s brainwave of penning queers within an elecrified fence, or dispensing advice, à la pastor Sean Harris, on violent techniques to cure children perceived to be gay by punching them or breaking their wrists.

So Apostolic Truth Tabernacle went for the jugular: capitalizing on the cuteness of a kid and coaching him to sing cutely, to their collective way of thinking, about the not-so-cute end gays face at death.

According to one congregant, Gay Star News reports, those who are upset by the message and the church’s gleeful reaction to it, “just don’t read the word of God. If we don’t teach children the truth early, they will never learn.”

There’s no question someting is “wrong” here. And what the fallout will be is anybody’s guess.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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